glorystomper

Actually, it's not just you. I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it "cruelty" but there's no question about it being stupid, self-serving, and irresponsible.

One of my favorite things is when I stumble on a conversation about skydiving that's taking place between people who don't know I jump. I love to listen to them tell people all about it. Just this past weekend, I was at a party where a girl was telling some people about her vast experience as a skydiver. She was throwing around the big talk and made it sound like she was a total pro. After all, she "had been doing it for years and had racked up 63 jumps!" Finally, I asked what skydiving discipline she liked. She replied, "both!" My personal favorite was a couple of years ago when I stumbled on a similar conversation and the person was explaining to her astounded audience how cool it was that you can have a totally normal conversation during freefall. I said, "really? how do you hear over the sound of the wind?" She said, "it's not windy at all. It's totally quiet and peaceful." More graduates of the Point Break School of Skydiving.

I haven't seen Wyatt for a few years, but we had some serious fun back in the day at Elsinore and I learned a lot from and with him. He was a good friend and all-around great guy and will be dearly missed.

I'm not exactly sure what the going rate is now, but I paid about $1200 for my AFF here in Southern California. That didn't include video for every jump though, but I don't think that's really necessary.

I just came back to the sport after a long lay-off myself and I would strongly suggest that you start out with a little bit larger canopy. You may only do one or 2 jumps on it and feel great, but you also might find that you'll need a few more to get fully back up to speed. Better safe than sorry!

Let me get this straight - because he has a lot of jumps, you think it's ok for your buddy to pull below 1k? Meanwhile, you're supporting a formal rule that would essentially ban swooping from many small DZs because you think swoopers are a danger? If you're going to get on a soap box about safety, a little consistency would be well advised. How can you expect to be taken seriously as a safety advisor if you're going to selectively advocate such reckless behavior? Whoever enforces the BSRs had best be consistent about it.

If you feel the wind on your thighs then you're probably back-sliding. I would definitely try to make a jump with your friend so you can at least have a point of reference to tell if you're indeed falling straight down. Ducks in 5!